From New York Times, I'm Michael Obaro. This is a daily.

Today, a Times investigation may finally answer the question of who carried out a brazen

wartime attack on two underwater pipelines connecting Russia and Europe.

My colleague, Julian Bars, says it's not who anyone first suspected.

It's Wednesday, March 8.

So Julian, you have been digging into one of the central mysteries of the war in Ukraine,

the suspected bombing of the Nord Stream underwater pipeline. And you think you now know who did it.

Yeah, we think we do know.

Okay, well, I'm going to ask you, and I am being a little bit coy here, not to tell us who you think it now is just yet,

because we have 20 minutes of the show to fill.

But also because I think it makes sense to start with the story of the pipeline itself.

Why it is so important and why its explosion became such an international event.

Absolutely. I mean, arguably, Michael, there's no piece of energy infrastructure in Europe that's more important than the Nord Stream pipelines.

Remember, there are actually two pipelines here, Nord Stream 1, which has been active for a decade.

And Nord Stream 2, which was all but complete, together the majority of the natural gas that Europe uses

with a flow through these pipelines from Russia, from Russia.

And these are very important projects. They tied Russia and Europe together.

They made Russia the most important energy supplier for Europe.

And so when Russia decides to invade Ukraine, the pipelines become a major focal point.

Right. Because in a sense, Russia, by this point through these pipelines,

had gotten Europe kind of addicted to its fuel, which ended up, of course, helping fund Russia's invasion of Ukraine,

and makes it a lot harder for Europe to turn its back on Russia over the invasion because it needs this energy.

...